IN LIFE AS IN THE DANCE : GRACE GLIDES

ON BLISTERED FEET.
---Alice Abrams

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Photo Hunters - Upside Down


Okay, I fell for it. I bought a "Topsy Turvy" tomato planter. The idea is to let the plants grow toward the ground instead of upward, thus eliminating the need for staking the plants. I planted Early Girl, Best Boy, and Brandywine. I followed the instructions to a tee. I think we got a total of twenty malformed tomatoes.

And I've never seen so many tomato worms in my life! Those buggars are ugly, too. And they have horns that can poke you. When you stomp on them they splatter, full of green goo. The ones that were big like my fingers, I had hubman remove, but he made so much fun of me (since I'm not a girly-girl) that I managed to be the worm serial killer. (I don't like using chemicals)

I think I'll go back to oak barrels next year!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your post. I have seen this advertised on television and have been intrigued by its principle. To be honest, I have wondered how the sheer weight of the tomatoes does not cause the vines to be torn out from the device. You planted a nice selection of tomatoes. I am sorry this gave you sub-par fruit. From the television advertisement, you should have gleaned award-winning tomatoes! From your account though - the advertisement is too good to be true (hmmmm - funny that), and I guess this was more of a worm magnet. Thanks also for the picture - you have a beautiful garden.

Anonymous said...

Green Goo. Thanks for that visual! hahahaha!

Linda said...

My Mom got one of these this year, too, I'll have to ask her how hers worked and whether any nasty green tomato worms camped out there!

Thing is, it definitely sounds good in advertising, especially considering that staking tomato plants can be such a pain in the back end as if you've got a lot of tomatoes, they do tend to get very heavy. Plus, this would give the opportunity for people who don't live in an area where you can have a garden some fresh 'maters right off the vine.

Too bad it didn't work like it was supposed to - but it did give you a great post!

Empress Bee (of the high sea) said...

oh i remember those horrible tomato worms! yuk! they are scary stuff!

smiles, bee
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Kanani said...

I have GOT to see what those tomatoes look like!
Sorry about the tomato worms. I'm kind of shocked they found their way up there.
BTW....I've written a little tribute to the corpsman who was from Riverbank (near where I was born and raised) over here.